Yesterday, the Thomas More Society filed an amicus brief urging the United States Supreme Court to hear a case involving “Choose Life” license plates, in order to resolve disputes among lower courts over how to treat specialty license plates.

Wisconsin Family Action president Julaine Appling states, “We’re honored to be part of this effort before the US Supreme Court. Earlier this year the Republican-led Wisconsin state senate killed our bill that would have authorized a Choose Life plate in our state. Their political games cost pro-life citizens their free-speech rights and the opportunity to create a legitimate funding stream for Wisconsin’s incredible life-saving, women’s-health promoting Pregnancy Resource Centers.”

“Sally (not her real name) was a church-going Christian. She was also unmarried but had reason to think she was pregnant. While she was over 18, she rightly turned to her parents for help and advice. Her parents, also Christians and solid church members, wanting to help her, took her not to one of Wisconsin’s life-saving, women-helping Pregnancy Resource Centers but to a local Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.

That decision baffled me. I asked some folks why they had done that. The response was telling. “Well,” they said, “it’s the only place they knew that gave free pregnancy testing.” My heart sank. That told me that Planned Parenthood has been successful—hugely so—in their marketing. Even Christian kids from Christian families and who had been in Christian schools knew about Planned Parenthood and saw it as the first line of help with a suspected or known pregnancy. I was pretty sure, too, that these folks thought of Planned Parenthood as “safe,” probably in all ways, meaning having their best interest at heart, giving reliable information, and not reporting them to any officials or even to parents.

Talk about eye-opening. I realized that even my own people did not know the truth about Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. They didn’t know about Pregnancy Resource Centers that are a much, much better place to go for help in these situations. And so we have determined that Wisconsin Family Council will use every available means to educate people about Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and Wisconsin’s fabulous Pregnancy Resource Centers.

For starters, lawsuits are underway in Arizona, Colorado and Ohio Planned Parenthood operations for not reporting underage rape. We’ve already had accusations of this sort about at least one Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin facility. The law generally requires health-care providers, which is what Planned Parenthood keeps saying they are, to report sexual abuse of minors. Undercover work shows it’s not all that unusual for Planned Parenthood personnel to absolutely ignore the information they are given about the ages of the girl and the man in given situations. That’s not just illegal; it’s downright dangerous for the young girl.

We know young women going to Planned Parenthood will not be told the truth about the baby they are carrying. They’ll be told it is just a fetus, a clump of tissues, a mass of cells, the product of conception. To call this a baby would be complicit in humanizing the pregnancy—and we certainly wouldn’t want that.

And this leads to the reality that Planned Parenthood is the nation’s and our state’s largest abortion provider. We learned recently that it’s standard policy for Planned Parenthood to actually budget for a certain number of abortions, which then gets viewed as “must-make” quotas. That means that when a young girl comes to Planned Parenthood and finds out or confirms she’s pregnant, we can boldly say she is going to be advised to abort the baby. We know, too, from reports Planned Parenthood has filed, that they are very unlikely to refer for adoption. Of course, they don’t make any money off adoptions.

All of this is if the girl goes to a Planned Parenthood facility. But many young people are first introduced to Planned Parenthood in their schools when they come in to do instruction as part of the school’s sex ed program. In these situations they are taught that casual, recreational sexual activity outside marriage is just fine—doesn’t hurt anybody—just be safe or safer. They promote contraceptive drugs and devices in pretty graphic ways. Students are referred to websites that also promote promiscuity—dangerous behaviors that come with all kinds of problems, sometimes for a lifetime. To make all this worse, much of the nasty work Planned Parenthood does is done using taxpayer money.

Simply put, Planned Parenthood is not a safe place for young women. It is not the place Christians should think of first or go to for help with a possible or real unplanned or crisis pregnancy. Sally did the right thing to talk to her parents. But her parents should have first checked with a pastor for help if they weren’t sure where to go next. Pastors need to be referring the Sallys they encounter to a reliable near-by Pregnancy Resource Center. Sadly, I’ve heard about well-intentioned pastors actually referring people to Planned Parenthood. So part of our education has to be to make sure pastors know about Wisconsin’s Pregnancy Resource Centers.

As it turned out, Sally wasn’t pregnant, though she could have been. Nevertheless, it’s a sad commentary that so many professing Christian young people today are needing referrals to places dealing with unplanned pregnancies. But that is the tragic reality. Let’s at least know the truth about Planned Parenthood and not put our young women in the hands of those who will just make a bad situation much worse.”

It’s January which means it is Sanctity of Human Life month. Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is this coming Sunday. On January 22 of this month it will be 41 years since the United States Supreme Court concocted pretty much out of thin air a “right to privacy” that made abortion legal across this country.

Over those intervening 41 years, Planned Parenthood both nationally and at the state level, has grown into multi-million dollar organizations. Planned Parenthood remains, nationally and here in Wisconsin, the number one provider of abortions each year. Planned Parenthood receives millions of dollars each year of taxpayer money—that’s your money—that then is used to promote in public schools and elsewhere programs and materials and ideologies that encourage our young people to engage in promiscuous, recreational sex—often illegal activity because of state under-age-sex laws. In so doing, Planned Parenthood is virtually assuring future business, if not for abortion at least for tests for sexually-transmitted diseases and infections.

While Planned Parenthood has been using millions, if not billions, of our hard-earned dollars to propagate it’s dangerous and insidious message and work, pro-life groups have managed to gain some important victories—nationally and at the state level—without drinking at the trough of government funds, a euphemism for your money.

In spite of this very obvious tilting of the field against us, pro-life organizations and pro-life citizens continue to gain the high ground. In Wisconsin, the number of abortions has consistently gone down over the last several years, reaching a record low in 2012 in both number of abortions performed and the abortion rate. The 2012 numbers are 6,927 abortions and 6.1 abortions per 1,000 Wisconsin women ages 15-44, which is well below the national statistics.

One abortion is too many; certainly nearly 7000 abortions are horribly too many. However, we are encouraged that the number is dropping. The number is going in the right direction because with the help of many of you as pro-life citizens, we’ve passed some good laws restricting abortion and making sure women are truly informed and protected as they consider this life-taking, high-risk procedure.

But it’s not just laws that are helping win the day. It’s changes in the culture, as well. More and more people think abortion any time for any reason is not right. That tells me some of the pro-life media campaigns have hit the mark. It also tells me that our churches have been getting the biblical pro-life message out. It tells me families are making sure the next generation knows the truth. Gains against the formidable, well-funded pro-abortion crowd don’t come easy but they are always worth the money, time and effort expended. Who can put a price on saving the life of a baby?

Now that’s the question of the day as we mark 41 years of the abortion holocaust in our country and 41 years of Planned Parenthood’s anti-life, anti-women scourge on our communities. That’s the question I ask now as we enter the last couple of months of our legislative session here in Wisconsin. I ask it directly of the State Senate where we have 2 pro-life bills sitting waiting for action in this house so the bills can go to the governor. Assembly Bill 216 would keep taxpayers from having to pay for the abortions of state employees and would also create a religious freedom exemption for churches and other religious organizations so they can offer their employees health insurance that does not include contraceptives that are abortion-inducing—against their religious beliefs. Assembly Bill 217 would ban sex-selective abortions in our state.

In addition to these two bills, we have Assembly Bill 206 in the Senate, ready for this body to vote on and get to the governor. Assembly Bill 206 authorizes a Choose Life Wisconsin license plate with proceeds from the sale of the plate going to our Pregnancy Resource Centers so they can continue and enlarge their life-saving, life-affirming, pro-women work.

Really, who can put a price—whether that price is financial, social, or political—on saving the life of a baby? I’m hopeful that our State Senate will clearly see the answer to that question and join wholeheartedly in 2014 Sanctity of Human Life month by acting on these bills so that in 2015, we can report more Wisconsin babies saved and more Wisconsin women protected from the horrors of abortion.

MADISON, Wis. — “We are extremely pleased that the State Assembly passed the bill authorizing a Choose Life Wisconsin specialty license plate,” said Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action.

Appling continued, “We owe a huge thank you to Rep. Jacque for his work on this bill. Likewise, we are thankful for those who supported this measure. The liberal representatives in the Assembly went to great lengths in their opposition to this proposal. Their shenanigans on the floor last night showed once again that when they cannot attack an issue on its merit, they will make outrageous, unwarranted personal and organizational attacks.”

Sales from the Choose Life license plates will go to Wisconsin’s Pregnancy Resource Centers to assist in their life-saving, life-affirming work.

“Last session the State Assembly passed a resolution honoring Wisconsin’s Pregnancy Resource Center and proclaiming October 2011 as ‘Pregnancy Care Month.’ Just last night the Assembly passed a resolution recognizing November as Adoption Month. It is altogether fitting that this license plate, the proceeds from which will be used to educate and care for women and their unborn children and to promote adoption be approved in the Assembly right now,” said Appling.

The bill still needs a hearing and a vote in the Senate, where Sen. Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) is the lead author.

As the pro-abortion movement targets pro-life Governor Scott Walker in next year’s gubernatorial race, Walker and pro-life Wisconsin residents can rest assured that a majority of the state’s voters are on their side.

Wisconsin Family Action president Julaine Appling states, “The Wisconsin Assembly and Senate have taken great steps to make sure that women are protected at some of the most vulnerable times of their lives. They have lent a strong representation of the will of the people on the issue of life. Being pro-life means we value all human life, from the first moment of conception through natural death. WFA continues to work towards abolishing all abortion in the state of Wisconsin, and across the nation.”

I love watching the Packers. But watching the Pack play in October is a bit difficult for me. It’s about the pink hats, wrist bands, socks, cleats, shoes, towels, helmet decals, and a couple of weeks ago, even pink penalty flags that show up on the players and coaching staffs during the games in recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We all need to know the truth about Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, the sponsor of all this pink.

There’s hardly a person who will hear this commentary whose life has not in some way been touched by breast cancer. We all want real cures and real preventions for this disease that is the leading cancer among women and ranks second in the number of cancer-related deaths among women. But there must be a better way to raise awareness and money for a cure than by having an organization that has strong ties to Planned Parenthood leading the way.

A few years ago the money tie that binds Komen for the Cure Foundation to Planned Parenthood was in the news a great deal. For a while last year, and because of public perception and pressure, Susan G. Komen stopped giving to Planned Parenthood. However, the organization soon recanted and reinstated the funding stream. The argument that the Komen Foundation makes for funding Planned Parenthood, in their own words, is that “In some areas of the U.S., our affiliates have determined a Planned Parenthood clinic to be the best or only local place where women can receive breast health care.”

Such an assertion bears looking into—and when you do, you might be surprised to find that first Planned Parenthood does not do mammograms. They refer for mammograms, but they don’t actually offer the service. Just how much money does it take for a Planned Parenthood affiliate to tell a woman where she can get a mammogram?

Ok, so maybe Planned Parenthood facilities provide other screenings or tests, but is Planned Parenthood really the “only local place” where “some women in some communities can receive breast health care”—especially low-income women? Of course not. Hospitals frequently offer free screenings, as do other clinics and organizations.

Well, then, is Planned Parenthood the “best” place for such treatments, education, screenings? That, too, is highly doubtful. Planned Parenthood Federation and its state level affiliates are not primarily medical clinics. They are primarily abortion providers, even though they don’t agree with that characterization. However, that’s where the nation’s leading abortion provider makes its money.

It’s hard to imagine that a place that focuses on preventing babies from being born by hawking contraceptives and further kills babies in utero, is the best place to go for treatments, education, and screenings for breast cancer.

Making the Komen/Planned Parenthood link even worse is that reliable studies continue to show a very real link between abortion and breast cancer. In some groups, the risk of getting breast cancer increases twofold for women who have had abortions. The attempt to cover up this information is staggering. We have tried in the past to get this abortion-breast cancer link information included in Wisconsin’s Women’s Right to Know law—with no success. However, the science is there, for those who want to—or are willing—to see it. So, here’s a group that is supposed to be finding a cure for and prevention methods for breast cancer giving millions of dollars to an organization that is contributing to the problem. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.

Please consider the following. The Planned Parenthood-friendly Guttmacher Institute reports that abortion rates are 4 times higher for black women than white women. Commensurately, the Centers for Disease Control, the incidence of breast cancer from 2000-2009 has “increased significantly by 0.7% per year among black women,” while the incidence of breast cancer over the same period has “decreased significantly by 1.0% per year among white women.” Coincidence? Maybe. Just one factor in the breast cancer issue? Perhaps. However, add this information to the research that is being done on the abortion-breast-cancer link, and I think it’s time we paid attention. Women’s lives are at stake.

It’s likely very unrealistic for me to expect the Packers to stop wearing pink in October. But, at a minimum you and I can and should be good stewards of our money and support organizations working to battle breast cancer but that don’t support Planned Parenthood. The “pink link” is becoming too obvious for us to ignore.

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